The present invention is in the field of systems, methods, and computer program products for control for persistent search results and iterative searching.
Classic internet search interfaces, such as those located at WWW.GOOGLE.COM, WWW.BING.COM, and WWW.YAHOO.COM, include a text box where a user can enter a keyword or keyword string (also referred to herein as “search term(s)” or a “query”). The user is presented with a list of search results. In some instances, search interfaces provide the user with controls to refine the search results. For example, e-commerce search interfaces often allow a user to filter search results by price, color, size, user rating, etc.
When a user clicks on a search result in the list of search results, the search results list is replaced by the selected search result. In some circumstances, this is an effective design. For example, when the user is seeking a single result, and that result appears at the top of the list, the user task is complete after two steps, i.e., entering a query and selecting the first search result.